Click here to see a slideshow of the Ca Mau porcelain

Brand new “antiques” they might be, but no matter. Ironically enough, in the same street was a tailor who made the Business Manager (Mrs P) a silk dress. While she was being measured up and fitted out, I was taken to a backroom to see the owner’s collection of real Vietnamese antiques.

The tailor’s wife explained that the pottery had been brought to the shop by fishermen who

often pulled in their nets and found stuff in them dredged up from the seabed. Interestingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, they were decorated with designs similar to our fantastical fishes and dragons.

I could take my pick, pay the necessary and no one would trouble me at customs, I was reliably informed, specially if I hid the piece away in my luggage wrapped in a dirty shirt.

In true journalistic style, I made my excuses and left. Were in not for our fish and dragon pots, I’d be at Shrewsbury, Shropshire auctioneers Halls next week bidding for some of the porcelain pictured here.

It is what’s left of a massive consignment of 18th century export porcelain salvaged from the Ca Mau, a Chinese junk which sunk off the Vietnam coast in 1725.

Following two successful auctions of the stuff last year, Halls are hoping for similar enthusiasm from collectors when another 1,000 pieces go under the hammer.

The first part of the collection, sent for sale by a Staffordshire collector, sold for £16,000 in March. In December, the second consignment of 440 pieces sold for £7,500., Assuming that demand might be becoming satiated, there could be some bargains this time.

Halls fine art director Jeremy Lamond, the specialist in charge of the sale, told me that the Ca Mau was engulfed by an intense fire while sailing 90 miles south of Canton on its way to the Malaysian archipelago.

The fire, burning at 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, may have started in the kitchen as cast iron cooking pots were found welded together.

The heat was so intense that it fused together some pieces of its precious cargo.

The junk lay undisturbed for more than 280 years until, in 1998, two Vietnamese fishermen snagged their nets on some of the porcelain and began to haul it from the deep.

Before the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture and Information stepped in, the fishermen had managed to bring to the surface over 30,000 pieces.

In 2005, the Vietnamese government decided to sell a proportion of the 130,000 pieces that had been salvaged and sent 76,000 to auction at Sotheby’s in Amsterdam.

The sale over three days in January 2007 saw the Ca Mau finally unload its cargo to an eager market in the West after a gap of two centuries.

“Shipwreck porcelains are a fascinating subject and shed much light on history, human and marine archaeology and commerce,” Mr Lamond said.

“They represent in their purest form a time capsule, sealing in the fashion of the day represented by the most popular shapes and designs.”

After the discovery of the Nanking Cargo by Michael Hatcher in the 1980s, there have been many shipwreck porcelain sales at auction including Vung Tau, Tek Sing, and Diana.

The number of pieces offered have been breathtaking, usually 100,000 or more per sale and reflect the size of these cargoes in their day and the demand for such wares throughout South East Asia and Europe.

“To the student of porcelain, shipwreck artefacts present a unique window on the past. They are obviously not fakes or reproductions and such pieces are ideal for learning by handling,” Mr Lamond said.

“If a shipwreck has been thoroughly excavated, then dating is usually quite precise and it would not be difficult for a keen collector to pick up wares from shipwreck porcelains offered on the current market from ships dating from the Song and pre-Ming dynasties right through to the 19th century! “Arranged in chronological order, this would give the scholar a snapshot of Chinese taste and design throughout the centuries for as little as a few hundred pounds.”

The Chinese export trade to Europe in blue and white porcelain tea wares reached its zenith in the 18th century and catered for a burgeoning middle class demand for durable and attractive blue and white porcelain tableware.

In the early 18th century, when the Ca Mau sank, the principal companies dealing in the export trade were the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the East India Company of London.

Although the Ca Mau was destined for Batavia, the major part of its cargo was to be shipped on to the Netherlands and some of the porcelains were painted to Dutch taste with churches and traditional European scenes in the so-called Scheveningen design.

A great deal of the Ca Mau cargo consisted of tea bowls, saucers and saucer dishes for the mass market painted in cobalt blue against a white porcelain ground which are ideal for collectors, being easy to display, relatively inexpensive and often utilising a myriad of different patterns.

The Halls sale is next Wednesday March 11 with viewing from Saturday Mar 7. Estimates start from £120 for 30 saucers. Further information from Halls on 01743 284777.

Click here to see a Wedgwood wonderland

     Venture capitalists circle over the Barlaston works, enticed by Receivers who will be the only winners in the game, while a talented workforce of Staffordshire potters nervously awaits its fate.
    Founded by the great Josiah in 1759, Wedgwood once produced wares that everyone wanted to buy from Catherine the Great to people like my parents who just wanted a smart Sunday best teaset. Not any more it seems.
    The youngest of 12 children, Josiah was born at his parents’ pottery in Burslem. He started school at the age of six, but was forced to leave on his father’s death at nine.
    He then worked then for five years as apprentice in the family pot bank, but was then

struck down by smallpox. It was a cruel blow which affected his legs – his right one had to be amputated – making him unable to operate a potter’s wheel.
    Cast adrift by his family – his eldest brother refused to take him into partnership – he worked for two years for another potter before he met and, in 1754, entered into partnership with one of the most eminent potters of the day, Thomas Whieldon.
    Robbed of a career as a potter, Wedgwood concentrated on developing new ceramic bodies and glazes and by the time the Whieldon partnership expired in 1759, Wedgwood had invented several new products. He started his own business back in Burslem and began to prosper.
     In 1762, he met Thomas Bentley, a successful Liverpool merchant with a wide and cultivated taste who had the right social contacts and a knowledge of the arts that gave him an eye for design.
    Wedgwood was quick to recognise the inspiration that Bentley offered and the two formed a partnership that lasted from 1768 until Bentley’s death in 1780.
    It was at this time that collectors became interested in the classical antiquities being discovered in Etruscan tombs and Wedgwood and Bentley produced copies, including their so-called Etruscan vases.
    When they opened their new works in 1769, they called it Etruria after the district in central Italy where the ancient Etruscans had lived.
    A pioneer of the Industrial Revolution and the canal system – he wanted a cheap and reliable means to transport his wares to Liverpool – a scientist, engineer, entrepreneur businessman, anti-slavery campaigner, aesthete and radical, Josiah is regarded as the father of English potters.
    Wedgwood became a public company in 1967 (some say that’s when the decline started) and it was taken over 19 years later by Warterford Glass. What happens next is anyone’s guess but what remains a constant is the raft of highly collectable pottery.
    Early pieces of Wedgwood and Bentley black basaltes busts and vases still turn up at auction, while the Fairyland Lustre designed by Daisy Makeig-Jones (1881-1945) is highly sought after.
       Interestingly Daisy’s innovative designs helped the company revive its reputation in the harsh years of the first quarter of the 20th century, as did the work of such distinguished artists as Keith Murray (1892-1981), John Skeaping (1901-1980), Eric Ravilious (1903-1942) and Arnold Machin (1911-1999).
       Another constant, where all of the company’s rarest treasures can be seen, is the futuristic new £10.5 million Wedgwood Museum which opened last October.
    Built after eight years of international fund-raising and supported by a £5.9 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant, the museum is a registered charitable trust and thankfully entirely independent from the company.
    Situated at the Wedgwood factory site at Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent (the company moved there in 1939) the museum exhibits include everything from Josiah’s experimental trials, designs and products from throughout the 18th century to the present day totalling about 6,000 artefacts, some never seen by the public before.
       A collection of 75,000 original manuscripts detailing everything from international trade, social history, the anti-slavery campaign and the building of Britain’s canal system , and 10,000 experimental pieces from the Wedgwood archives are also available for examination, while important original paintings by artists Joshua Reynolds and George Stubbs portray Josiah and his family. 
     A unique interactive  "magic carpet ride" takes visitors on an aerial tour around Wedgwood’s original Etruria factory, now demolished, and specially built bottle ovens house display areas of 18th century wares.
    The museum is open from 9am to 5pm (10am at weekends) and admission costs £6 (concession £5) or in groups £5 (concession £4.50). For further information, go to www.wedgwoodmuseum.org.uk or telephone 01782 371900.

Pictures show, from top: A portrait of Josiah Wedgwood I (1730-95) in enamels on a Wedgwood ceramic plaque made in 1780

The Portland Vase a Black Jasper copy of the famous Roman cameo glass vase once owned by the Duchess of Portland.  It took Josiah over three years of experiments and trials before the first perfect copy was made in October 1789.  They are considered amongst the greatest technical achievements of the potter’s art

The Apotheosis of Homer vase in Blue Jasper, the bas relief design by John Flaxman Junior.  Josiah Wedgwood declared this to be, ‘The finest and most perfect I have ever made’, c.1786.

Left: Fairyland lustre was the name given by Daisy Makeig-Jones to her range of designs based on exotic fairy stories where vivacious imps and fairies are seen in mystical landscapes.  The ware was made by Wedgwood from 1915 until 1931, though after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, demand declined dramatically. This bowl dates from about 1920.

Pictures courtesy of the Wedgwood Museum, Stoke-on-Trent.

René writes: We’re proud collectors of Velsen pottery (the polychrome kind 1940’s – 1960’s). Maybe you could post our blog on your site too ? It’s hard to find anything on Velsen pottery on the Internet. Kindest regards, René.

According to René’s blog, There’s not much to be found about Velsen Polychrome Porcelain (polychroom porselein) on the Internet…..and that is too bad.

So, let’s help out here folks.

According to René

At  the end of the 1920’s Eelke Snel (21 years old) and Koen Mertens (31 years old) started a ceramics factory in Velsen-north under the name “Pottery Kennemerland”. Eelke Snel started out as a help in making the moulds at the Amphora factory in Oegstgeest.
From there he started working at St. Lukas in Utrecht. Then on the 20th of may 1920 he, Koen Mertens, Jan van Ham and Cees Muyens started a new pottery under the name “De vier paddelstoelen” (The four mushrooms). This didn’t last very long and in December of the same year Eelke and Koen started their own company in Velsen.
This didn’t seem to be the right combination, because only four years later Eelke went on alone. Eelke tried to make a cheap but beautiful kind of pottery and succeeded , because shortly after this a lot of workers joined the factory. The first designs were hand painted with squares on a cream coloured and gray background.
When the designer Carl Gellings came into the picture, the simple designs turned a bit more to art. In the years to come the designs changed to more delicate objects.
In 1943 – during the second world war – the factory was ordered by the Germans to move. The factory moved to Sassenheim and changed the name to “Velsen”. There they started out with the old moulds, but soon came up with other forms of pottery, porcelain and ceramics.

Potterie Kennemerland, Velsen 1920-1924
Kennemer Pottenbakkerij, Velsen 1924-1929
N.V. Kennemer Potterij, Velsen 1929-1932
E. Snel voorheen N.V. Kennemer Potterij, Velsen 1933-1936
Kunstaardewerkfabriek Velsen, Velsen 1936-1942
Keramiekfabriek Velsen, Sassenheim 1942-2002

So please, anyone with any further information about this charming and highly decorative porcelain, do let René and me know.  Numerous Brownie points to anyone who can help

IT HAS been over 50 years since Lladró products first came on to the market and whether you love them or loathe them, there can be no escaping the fact that they have become collectors’ items in a very short space of time.

See a Lladro slideshow

The company was founded in 1953 when Juan, Jose and Vicente, three brothers of considerable artistic talent, formed the small family company in the Valencian village of Almácera, on Spain’s eastern Mediterranean coast.

The Lladró brothers were born into a farming family, but they made their mark on the ancient tradition of Spanish porcelain manufacture by developing a range of products much closer to ordinary people which previously had been reserved for only the rich. They

attended Valencia School of Arts and Craft, where they studied drawing and sculpture and built a small Moorish kiln in the courtyard of the family home to experiment with firing and finishing techniques.

In 1953, they quit their jobs at a tile-making factory and began manufacturing ceramic flowers which they sold at the local market. From humble beginnings Lladró quickly became a market leader.

Production started with items such as vases and jugs, and it was not until 1956 that the figurines for which they are now most famous were introduced.

Business boomed and they outgrew their small workshop, moving to Tavernes Blanques in 1958.

In 1962, the brothers founded a training school for potters there and it continues today, teaching the brothers’ vision and philosophy to a new generation.

The brothers’ family home and their first workshop at Almácera is now open to the public.

Visitors can not only see the first Lladró pieces that they designed but the drawings, frescos and sculptures they made as students.

Their porcelain has always been of a contemporary style and widely collected, while their distinctive range of figures that express such a range of human emotions and relationships are hugely popular and are found in living rooms around the world

Lladró has undergone an amazing metamorphosis from being a simple artisan workshop to a huge firm of international renown enjoying continual growth, its management remaining in the hands of the Lladró family since its inception.

The company’s creative team started out by adapting styles from past eras, but it was not long before certain characteristics appeared that would soon shape what was to become the unique Lladró style.

Lladró figurines are made out of an original blend of hard-paste porcelain, which gives the products their unique characteristics. The glaze ingredients, an industry secret, also add to the look of the figures.

A new factory, called the City of Porcelain was opened by the Spanish Minister for Industry in 1969. It took two years to build and today, more than 2,000 people work there.

The spectacular 100,000 sq ft complex includes design studios, laboratories, warehouses, office buildings and showroom and is open to the public.

Lladró creations are exported to more than 100 countries with almost 4,000 points of sale including New York’s 57th Street where there is a second Lladró museum.

The craftsmanship behind the current collection of Lladró figures is considered to be of outstanding technical merit. Introduced onto the market at the beginning of this year, the Utopia collection brings together all the great symbols of Lladró over the years and celebrates the efforts of a generation of artists and artisans.

Interestingly, each piece in the Utopia collection has been reworked from its original design to celebrate the classic pieces that have became so popular over the last 50 years.

In doing so, Lladró designers have given each a contemporary makeover intended to suit the styles and desires of today’s collectors, the range symbolising friendship, innocence, joy, love and protection.

Lladró also runs a club for collectors called the Privilege Scheme. More than 130,000 members enjoy access to exclusive wares and updates on the company’s latest developments. There is also the opportunity to participate in trips and social and cultural events throughout the world.

The club was formed in 1985 and today, the first annual sculpture produced for club members, called "Little Pals", can fetch several thousand pounds at auction. It is rare because few were produced owing to the small number of club membership in the early years.

Auction prices for contemporary Lladró, which is widely available, start as low as £50. Figurines dating from the 1960s are rare and collectors are prepared to pay highly for examples in perfect condition.

Even figures withdrawn from production as recently as the 1980s can command prices in excess of £1,000.

YOU’RE about as much use as a chocolate teapot! It’s a put-down that’s as old as the hills, but while teapots made from chocolate are as rare as rocking horse do-do, antiques related to the confection are still relatively plentiful.

Click here for a sweet slideshow

“Chocolate antiques” including 17th and 18th century Chinese pots for pouring the stuff and cups for drinking it, together with 19th and early 20th century English silver chocolate pots are sweet collectors’ items.

Chinese chocolate cups and pots are described as rare by Oriental specialist exhibitor

Catherine Hunt. She says: “The popularity of chocolate exploded across the West when the secret of the drink escaped from the Spanish. They originally brought it back from the New

World, and it was taken up by the French Court in the early 17th century. Chocolate houses opened in Paris and then London and the craze for this seductive drink swept Europe.

“Like tea, medicinal properties were attached to the drinking of chocolate, notably as a cure for all stomach ailments but also as an aphrodisiac, which made it particularly popular.

“The Chinese, who were making tea and coffee services, quickly added chocolate wares to their exports, and silver manufacturers also adapted their tea and coffee services to the new fashion”.

Chocolate, or Xocolatl, as the Aztecs called it, means food for the gods, or god’s food. The Aztecs and Mayans greatly prized the bitter drink as an aphrodisiac and the source of great energy.

The Spanish conquerors of South America did not like the bitter drink but found that by adding cane sugar, it was much more to their liking. When they returned to the Spanish court, the drink underwent more changes with the addition of vanilla and newly-discovered spices.

The chocolate drink soon became highly sought after by the Spanish aristocracy, and when it was transformed into a hot drink, its popularity spread even faster.

Spanish monks were given the task of processing the cocoa bean, which was imported from the new plantations that were established in the Spanish territory of the New World.

The monks were able to keep the secret of chocolate until the early part of the 17th century, when it was stolen and taken to France. At the French Court it became even more popular and was exported to Britain and the first of the chocolate houses soon opened in London.

So, what’s the difference between a chocolate pot and a coffee pot? Answer: it’s not a straightforward matter.

Silver pots present less of a problem. The silver chocolate pot has a hinged lid, or else a detachable flap or finial through which a rod, called a molinet, can be inserted to stir the chocolate sediment.

The molinet is generally made of wood with a terminal or knop in silver or ivory.

In ceramics, if truth be told, the two are indistinguishable.

Of course, if I was to go on to become one of the country’s richest individuals, and if my children were to marry into the upper classes, joining families whose power is second only to royalty, then things might be different.

Then, perhaps, a few of hundred years from now, my two plates might turn up in an auction where they sell for so much money, pictures of them appear in the newspapers.

My great-great-grandchildren, if I ever have any, should not hold their breath. None of the above is likely to happen, and anyway, my plates came from an advertisement in a magazine!

The plate pictured here, is the exact opposite of my own. So well known it has its own name, the “Three Graces” plate is fully documented and the names of the three girls and the even the painter who decorated it are known.

Which goes some way to explaining why, when it was offered recently by Worcestershire auctioneer Philip Serrell (of TV antiques programmes fame) it sold for a record £29,900.

More importantly though, the plate was made at William Billingsley’s short-lived porcelain factory near Cardiff and today, because such prized pieces rarely come to the market, collectors will pay until it hurts.

Billingsley’s factory was founded on the site of an old Swansea copper works but production lasted for just 62 years, from 1764 to 1826, before the business crashed into bankruptcy and its stock in trade auctioned off to pay creditors.

In the process, it produced some of the most beautiful and technically finest porcelain ever made.

The Swansea story starts in 1764 when William Coles, of Neath, built a pottery producing cheap, utilitarian wares from local clay. The factory was built on the site of an old copper works between the River Tawe and where Swansea High Street station now stands.

Coles died in 1778 and the factory was taken over by his sons. In 1790, George Haynes became a partner in the company, acting as factory manager. He set about expanding the premises and employing skilled workmen, changing its name to the Cambrian Pottery.

Ware decorated in underglaze blue was the mainstay of production at this time, sometimes (although not always reliably) identifiable by small marks such as stars, crosses, hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs impressed into the base of the pieces.

In 1802, William Dillwyn bought a controlling interest in the factory and set up his son, 24-year-old Lewis Weston Dillwyn as proprietor. Haynes stayed on and the firm was called Haynes, Dillwyn and Co.

Haynes left in 1810 to start up the rival Glamorgan Pottery and Dillwyn went into partnership with his manager, Timothy Bevington, and his son, John.

New investment doubled the firm’s capacity under the name Dillwyn and Co., Swansea, the impressed mark appearing in a straight line, as a broken circle or as a horseshoe.

In a separate development, wealthy entrepreneur William Weston Young persuaded the gifted ceramic artist William Billingsley to leave his native Derby and set up a porcelain factory about 40 miles away from Dillwyn’s venture at Nantgarw, near Cardiff.

Billingsley, together with master potter Samuel Walker, set his sights high and attempted to emulate the products of European manufacturers of fine porcelain.

Unfortunately, however, the “glassy” nature of the body required such high temperatures to cause it to vitrify that losses in the kilns grew to unacceptable levels and the venture resulted in near financial ruin.

In 1815, however, Dillwyn invited the near bankrupt Billingsley and Walker, to join him at Swansea so that the former could add porcelain to the earthenware he was already producing.

The venture achieved some success, but in 1817, Dillwyn temporarily withdrew from the partnership to manage his late father’s massive estate. In the meantime, the factory was leased to the Bevingtons.

It was a disastrous move. Billingsley and Walker returned to Nantgarw, leaving the father and son to founder. Only small quantities of porcelain were produced at this time and little more earthenware.

Business picked up on Dillwyn’s return in 1824. Large quantities of earthenware were made, much of it decorated in blue and white transfer printed patterns, the most famous of which is the so-called “Ladies of Llangollen” design.

Inspired by the story of Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby who went to live at Plas Newydd in North Wales in 1776, the pattern shows the two women riding horses through a landscape with the houses and church of the town in the background, the medieval bridge over the River Dee and Castell Dinas Bran in the foreground.

In 1837, Dillwyn bought the lease of the rival Glamorgan Pottery and closed it down two years later. However, there followed a general decline in quality and attractiveness of Dillwyn Swansea to the point, in 1870, when the factory was closed.

Increasing mechanisation and overwhelming competition from the Staffordshire Potteries produced the sort of price war in which there could be only one winner: the pot banks of Arnold Bennett’s Five Towns.

Billingsley and Walker, meanwhile, lasted at Nantgarw only until 1820, when the partners moved to work for Coalport in Shropshire.

However, they left today’s collectors a legacy of Welsh porcelain of sometimes quite outstanding beauty. Its particular appeal is its soft white translucent body which provides a perfect “canvas” for highly detailed and colourful botanical and landscape painting.

In addition, it is also prized for the elegance of shapes developed by modeller Isaac Wood. Many of the leading ceramic artists were employed, including one who is recorded as having moved there from the Sevres factory.

For a new collector the scope is bewildering by its very anonymity. Best advice is to visit museums where Swansea pottery and porcelain is on show (notably the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London),

Potential buyers should also visit auction salerooms where examples have been catalogued by specialists with the necessary knowledge to identify the good from the indifferent. The advantage of the latter is that pieces can be handled and inspected closely.

Then read as much as you can on the subject, particularly The Pottery and Porcelain of Swansea and Nantgarw by E Morton Nance, a scholarly tome to be found in good reference libraries.

There is much to learn … and not many clues for the newcomer. The blue and white earthenware, the stoneware and soft paste porcelain produced by the Swansea factories is often unmarked.

That means buying examples presuming they came from South Wales potteries is something of a gamble. But it also means many collectors pass them by when pieces come for sale in the auction room or antique shop.

Learn to recognise patterns and styles of the various factories and you could find rich rewards.

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Picture shows: A fine plate from William Billingsley’s short-lived factory near Cardiff, painted by Thomas Baxter and traditionally known as the “Three Graces”. It depicts three beautiful young ladies in Regency dress – the daughters of Thomas Coutts, banker to George III. The three girls, Susanna, Francis, and Sophia, grew up to become highly prized brides. One went on to marry the Earl of Guildford, one the Marquis of Bute, and the other Sir Francis Burdett. The plate was first sold at the Burdett Coutts auction in 1922 and in 1938, it became the property of a Welsh porcelain collector F.E. Andrews. The plate will stay in Wales – it was bought last month by an anonymous Welsh collector for £29,900. Photo: Philip Sorrell Auctioneers

by Christopher Proudlove©

This feature is devoted to the breathtakingly beautiful, always valuable … and sometimes quite saucy products of Royal Saxon Porcelain Factory. There, that’s fooled you already. For those who have never heard of the Royal Saxon Porcelain Manufactory, read the German Meissen factory – one of the few firms to remain in continuous production from its beginnings in 1710 until the present day.

Every serious porcelain collector knows the early history of the company. For nigh on 1,000 years, the only people who knew the secret of how to produce hard paste porcelain were the Chinese.

Augustus the Great, the Elector of Saxony, was a great fan of the Chinese pots and he spent a fortune on purchasing a collection of more than 20,000 pieces which filled his palaces and storerooms. Indeed, Augustus spent so much money on his passion for fine porcelain that China became known as “the bleeding bowl of Saxony”.

He is even said to have swapped a regiment of dragoons for 48 Chinese porcelain vases, today still preserved among the 8,000 pieces that remain at Dresden, and known as the “Dragoon Vases”

In his quest for the means to pay for his obsession, Augustus engaged the services of a young apprentice apothecary named Johann Friedrich Boettger, who was said to have discovered a means of turning base metals into gold.

Boettger was virtually imprisoned in his laboratory, but, of course, never came up with the goods. Unwittingly, however, he did hit on a recipe that produced something very similar to Chinese hard paste porcelain.

Augustus was appeased – porcelain was worth almost as much as gold and production started in a factory in Meissen, near Dresden in 1710. Its success was legendary. Thanks to the massive demand for its products throughout Europe, particularly in England, Meissen became the ware every rich aristocrat wanted in his home. Designs copied those from China and Japan and, later, much of the best from English makers. The business thrived and enjoyed its golden years.

Today, pieces made from 1710 to the end of the 19th century are highly sought after by collectors. Small fortunes can change hands at auction sales, often for a single cup if two collectors battle it out for ownership. I watched a recent sale in which a tiny sugar bowl and cover, made in 1730 and decorated with armorials sell for a staggering £34,500.

Even more expensive, but many times more impressive was a pair of ormolu-mounted figures of a lion and a lioness modelled by the great Meissen artist Johann Joachim Kaendler in about 1748. Each an imposing six by eight inches, they were expected to fetch £25,000-35,000. They sold for £47,700.

Kaendler was sculptor at Augustus’s court and in 1731, Augustus installed him at Meissen to reorganise the modelling department. For the next 44 years Kaendler’s artistic genius, versatility and imagination brought the factory world renown.

He was assisted by three of the most distinguished pottery sculptors of the Rococo period: J.F. Eberlein, F.E. Meyer, and P. Reinicke and scarcely a palace in Europe did not contain Meissen figurines, dinner sets, vases, or other works of the Kaendler period.

Among his best-known works are his Commedia dell’Arte figurines, largely done between 1738 and 1740; his birds for the Japanese Palace in Dresden, executed between 1731 and 1735; and the 2,200-piece Swan Service made for Heinrich, Count von Brühl, from 1737 to 1741.

Finding – and affording – original Kaendler pieces is the stuff of dreams. But there is hope for collectors of lesser means.

Being one of Europe’s most successful porcelain manufactories, the company had been able to thrive by churning out copy after copy of an existing line of products to such an eager market that it never felt it necessary to produce anything new.

And then the Great War intervened. However, in 1918 a new managing director named Max Peiffer was appointed to revive the factory’s fortunes and he introduced new lines and new designers, notably Max Esser and Paul Scheurich, and output was concentrated on reviving Meissen’s artistic strength.

The Second World War, or rather the crippling lead up to it with Germany in the grip of the National Socialist League, had a further devastating affect on the factory’s fortunes. Under that regime, any artistic creativity was stymied.

Peiffer was sacked and innovation and artistic creativity went with him. The situation grew even worse after the war. Being based in Dresden, Meissen came under the rule of the East Germans and the Communist regime and was left to stagnate, pouring out the old lines that sold to the home market.

However, all this means that today’s collectors can enjoy searching out examples of the huge range of Meissen products dating from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Figure groups like the examples illustrated here are a particularly rich area of collecting, many of which can be positively identified as being “after” works by the great modellers such as Kaendler and his colleagues.

For “after”. read copies, but that does not mean they are reproductions in any derogatory sense. Not a bit of it. They are beautifully and expertly crafted, hand-painted works of art that put the series ware produced by (whisper the names) Royal Doulton, Beswick and Coalport to shame.

Pictures show, top: One of the best known works by Kaendler depicts the grandchildren of Augustus III. These examples date from circa 1870 and are worth £500-700

Below: This trio of figure groups are the work of J.J. Kaendler, left to right “The Goose Seller”, young lovers in 18th century dress, and “Harlequin & Columbine”. The first dates from circa 1870, the other two from 1950, but I defy you to tell the difference. Each is worth £500-700

Bottom, left to right: A pair of Meissen figures of young lovers in 18th Century dress dating from about 1870. They’re worth £700-900

“The Horse Tamer”, after a model by J.J. Kaendler, the figure of a rearing white stallion supported by a blackamoor. This example was made in about 1920 and is worth £1,500-2,000

Originally modelled by F. E. Meyer in the 18th century, these figure groups date from about 1870. On the left is a hurdy-gurdy player worth £800-1,200, while that on the right depicts the saucy mythological story of “Europa and the Bull”. It shows the Phoenician beauty Europa seated on the back of the white bull with two attendants dressing the animal with floral garlands. According to Greek mythology, Zeus became smitten with Europa and in order to woo her, he turned himself into a bull to get close to her. It’s worth £700-1,000.

38770-070115-304833-90

© 2007 All Rights Reserved.

by Christopher Proudlove©
In the post preceding this I wrote about porcelain decorated with magical images made at the Minton factory by French émigré Louis Solon. But that’s only half the story. Louis had a son, Leon, born in Stoke-on-Trent, so he had china clay in his blood. Léon’s innovations earned him his own place in the history of English ceramics. He was responsible for producing the remarkable porcelain plaques illustrated here, but he will be remembered best for his introduction to the Minton factory of so-called Secessionist Ware.

You will recall that Solon the elder had trained at the Sèvres factory in France, where he perfected the pâte-sur-pâte technique. Literally “paste on paste”, this involved building up layer after layer of white slip clay to produce decoration with a unique cameo-effect on objects such as vases, tiles and wall plaques. His arrival at Minton revived the company’s fortunes. Louis also married wisely, choosing Maria, the daughter of Leon Arnoux, Minton’s art director and regarded by many as “the man who made Minton”. The couple had eight sons and one daughter.

The first born, Léon Albert Victor Solon (1872-1957) was no less gifted than his father, the objects illustrated here bearing testament to his genius. Solon the younger trained at the Hanley and Kensington Schools of Art and joined Minton in 1895, rising to become head of the firm’s Art Nouveau department. Minton was quick to adopt the Art Nouveau style and when Léon’s designs were published by the design magazine The Studio while he was still a student, Minton were equally quick to offer him a job.

The development of the Art Nouveau movement as it spread across Europe was shaped in part by a group of rebel Viennese artists who had turned their backs on the Establishment. Vienna in the last quarter of the 19th century was a city of divisions: the rich enjoyed a lavish lifestyle of society balls and extravagance, while the poor struggled with a housing shortage, hunger and misery. The city’s young intellectuals, the artists, writers and scientists, looked to the new century for a new beginning.

For its artists, it came with the founding of a new society – the Secession – which, unlike Vienna’s long standing traditional Society of Artists, was intended to raise concern for art in the city and promote contact with artists abroad. It was founded by Gustav Klimt, Kolo Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Joseph Maria Olbrich. They decided to form their own exhibiting society and to publish a magazine called Ver Sacrum – the Sacred Spring. The first exhibition was held in the spring of 1898 with already a sizeable contribution from foreign artists, including some from Britain – “corresponding members of the Secession” as they were called. In 1900, for example, Scottish designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh and members of his circle exhibited at the society’s eighth show.

At the same time Minton was casting around for new ideas and with this European roots, Léon was eager to contribute. His first designs in 1898 were based on the principles of the Viennese movement and named Secessionist ware, underlining the Secession Movement’s impact even in North Staffordshire.

In 1901, Léon was joined at Minton by John Wadsworth and together they introduced many highly original designs to the Secessionist range. Shapes for the ornamental range of vases included inverted trumpets, elongated cylinders and exaggerated bottle forms, although tableware shapes remained conventional.

The complete Secessionist range comprised useful as well as ornamental wares including cheese dishes, plates, teapots, jugs and comports. Collectors today covet in particular the large jardinières, specially if their matching pedestal stands are complete and undamaged.

Initially patterns were accurate portrayals of themes from nature – flowers, birds and figures – but under the joint influence of Solon and Wadsworth, the natural sources were exaggerated and even distorted when the convoluted plant forms and floral motifs reach a peak of fantasy around the turn of the century.

Léon left Minton in 1905 and emigrated to America. The subsequent designs, the work of John Wadsworth alone, were well-defined, yet simplified abstract forms with the occasional use of classical motifs.

The body of the ware was made in cane-coloured earthenware and the surface decoration outlined in relief, either when each piece was cast from the mould or tube-lined. The latter technique involved squeezing a thin layer of liquid clay (slip) through a glass tube by hand on to biscuit (unglazed) ware in a fashion similar to icing a cake. The brightly coloured lead glazes were then painted within these outlines. Occasionally, a block-print would be used to produce a background effect, usually taking the form of foliage, and would form an integral part of the design.

One of the most visually stunning patterns on Secessionist ware features the so-called “Glasgow rose”. This stylised, angular representation of the flower is probably one of the best known Charles Rennie Mackintosh motifs and it is fascinating to speculate on how Minton brought together Vienna, Glasgow and Stoke in a single piece. The final Minton catalogue for Secessionist ware was produced in 1920 but despite this relatively short production run, considerable quantities were produced. However, its individual hand-made appearance was largely retained and because of the instability of the coloured glazes in use at the time and the methods by which they were applied, firing produced somewhat unpredictable results. The effect of colours intermingling is often seen and imparts a distinctive character to the ware.

Most Secessionist ware is marked “Minton Ltd.” with a distinctive black or green printed backstamp in swirling Art Nouveau style. When unmarked, “Mintons” can usually be found impressed into the clay. Impressed cyphers correspond to a year code by which a piece can be dated. Incised numbers of four digits identify the Minton shapes, while printed numbers denote the design sequence. Painted letters denote the various colour combinations used.

Pictures show, top: An extremely fine Minton porcelain plaque in multi colours depicting a bonneted lady in a long dress semi-kneeling at a shrine with a young seated angelic girl on a pillar and with an imaginary riverside townscape in the background, signed by Leon V. Solon. It sold for £1700. Below that is a Minton porcelain plaque depicting a lady in a long flowing dress kneeling at prayer, signed by Leon V Solon, 10.5 x 8 ins in a gilt frame. It sold for £1300

Below, left: These two Secessionist circular pottery plates, together with a similar square shallow dish sold for £240 in a recent auction of Minton ceramics

Right: The cover of Minton’s 1902 catalogue of Secessionist Ware

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© 2006 All Rights Reserved.

by Christopher Proudlove©

Minton master potter Louis Solon was livid. Returning home from Minton’s Staffordshire Potteries works one day, to his horror, he found that his maid had blackleaded the fireplace. No big deal, you might think. On the contrary, beneath the gunge were tiles Solon had decorated with an experimental glaze technique over which he had toiled for hundreds of hours.

The maid’s inadvertent snub is something that wouldn’t happen today. For a start, the tiles with their ethereal, cloudy white designs which Solon had built into the grate’s cast iron surround are more likely to be found in museums. And when an example comes on to the market, Minton’s so-called pâte-sur-pâte ceramics can fetch prices that defy gravity.

The name pâte-sur-pâte means literally paste on paste and it describes a technique that involves building up layer after layer of white slip clay to produce a unique cameo-effect decoration to ceramic objects such as vases, tiles and wall plaques.

These layers of slip had to be applied to the unfired pot while it was kept in a workable or “green” state. With the speed at which clay dries, this meant only so much decoration could be done at a time. When forced to stop, the decorator was required to return the piece to a lead-lined box full of wet rags to so that the pot could soak up moisture. Consequently, much of the work took many months to complete.

The process was introduced at the Sèvres factory in France where Solon had studied and mastered the technique, becoming its best known exponent. When, in 1870, Solon was “headhunted” by Minton as designer and modeller, his secrets came with him. The masterpieces he created became one of Minton’s major contributions to Victorian ceramics.

MSP – Minton’s abbreviation for the Minton Solon Process – was laborious, time-consuming and expensive, but the company allowed Solon to devote all his time to it over a long period. He was soon able to build up a small studio where he trained a number of apprentices whom he made responsible for the more repetitive work. This left Solon free to concentrate on the main figures, usually maidens and cherubs in diaphanous veils floating ethereally on subtle blue, grey and black grounds.

It has been said that as Solon grew older, his maidens grew fatter. It is true that in his earlier work, they are sylph-like, while 20 years on, they appear much more voluptuous. Solon had his witty side too. One particularly amusing vase shows a sensuous lady with a wicked expression dancing with veils, while his cherubs always seemed to suffer. They were made to climb fiery rope ladders, were locked in cages, expected to dance like puppets and were washed in basins and pegged out by their wings on washing lines to dry!

Many of Solon’s ornamental shapes were unique: large vases were adorned with the most complex handles, while a heavy font is supported by the arms of cherubs. His choice of ground colours also developed: his “changing pink” did just that, varying from strawberry to mushroom, depending on the light in which the object is viewed.

His other favourites included Prussian blue and celadon green, often used together, black, vivid green, salmon and chocolate brown, all of which were usually highlighted with the white figures. Occasionally, however, figures were in polychrome colours such as lilac, pastel blue, sand, grey, salmon and grass green.

Solon trained others and notable among them were Frederick Rhead, who later went to work for Woods and Sons, and Wedgwood, and Alboin and Laurence Birks who produced some stunning pieces.

A number of Solon pieces were on show at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 including déjeuner sets, dessert services, ice buckets, paperweights, trays and many pairs of vases. One pair, which cost £156 to produce, were sold to the retailer for 260 guineas and then offered for sale to the public at £350. Today, the same vases would fetch more than £4,000-6,000 or more.

Sadly, however, relatively few pieces of pâte-sur-pâte come onto the market and when they do, it is usually in a London auction room. Many eager bidders are attracted, particularly if a piece was actually made by the master himself. Examples of the work of Alboin Birks, Solon’s top apprentice, also sell at a premium and do occasionally turn up in provincial salerooms, where sometimes they are overlooked.

Pâte-sur-pâte continued to be produced at Minton until 1937, when it was used to create royal profiles on commemorative wares. The largest vase ever produced by the company was commissioned by Queen Victoria to commemorate her jubilee. It stands more than three feet tall and is displayed at her summer retreat, Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight.

Picture shows: Detail from the reverse of The Idol Seller. Cupid, seated at his workbench, makes the toys that are being sold by his mistress. Note the line of finished dolls hanging behind him. The vase is worth £3,000-5,000

The first time it happened was when a picture specialist at a leading auction house stood me in front of a Victorian narrative painting and explained the story depicted on its canvas.

I was both inspired and dumbstruck in equal measure by the specialist’s knowledge. Here was a charming enough painting of a family sitting around a cottage table, the mother reading a letter to her children and parents.

When the scene was explained by an expert, the picture took on a whole new meaning: the letter is bad news, the wife wears black and clearly the children have been orphaned by war or other mishap.

The father is an old soldier himself – there is a group of medals hanging above the fireplace, which is why he seems less distraught than his wife. And so on.

Narrative paintings has fascinated me ever since. But I thought that was the end of it. Not a bit.

I attended the International Ceramic Fair in London last month, where I met someone who has forgotten more about pottery and porcelain than I’ll never know. He explained to me the significance of the object illustrated here.

It was made by the German manufactory Meissen in 1745 and is correctly termed a chafing dish, cover and stand.

Interestingly, it came from the collection of the Dukes of Westminster and might once have stood on display in William Porden’s Eaton Hall, Chester.

My expert guide to this ceramic conundrum was Paul Crane, of London ceramics dealer Brian Haughton. Mr Crane had spent months cracking the various codes displayed on the piece – so simple to spot so long as you have eyes to see them.

The first thing that strikes the viewer is the armorials painted on the piece. They are those of Frederick-Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, King Augustus III of Poland and his wife Queen Maria-Josepha.

The second thing is the obvious domestic nature of the object. Why would such an dish, more usually found in kitchen or on a dining table, be so profusely decorated?

Simple, Research has proved that the dish, commissioned personally from Meissen by the Queen, was intended as her gift to her husband to mark their 25th – or silver – wedding anniversary.

The fact that its design was based on something more often found in silver eludes, therefore, to a strong and successful marriage which had enjoyed 25 years of domestic bliss and harmony.

This then is an important piece of Meissen, not only as an emblem of unchanging love in a royal marriage, but also a tour de force of ceramic art.

Meissen’s chief modeller J.J.Kaendler (1706-1775) and his decorators were commissioned personally by the queen and between them, they produced a ceramic tour de force.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Europe was gripped by a fascination with the secret Turkish language of flowers, introduced to England by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, the wife of the ambassador from the Court of St. James to Constantinople.

Flowers had long been the sign of romance but adopting the secret language meant lovers were then able to send messages to each other and proclaim their love using specific flowers.

In simple terms, this might just mean sending a posy carefully chosen for the moment. More complex was to appear in a portrait holding certain flowers or by commissioning special objects illustrating their private thoughts.

So it is with the chafing dish. On the cover of the dish alongside the arms of the Elector and his wife appear the heartsease or wild pansy which show the twin faces of togetherness and thoughtfulness.

The iron red genista or broom on the right means a union which would refer to the happy couple, while the panel showing a stag hunt, a pursuit reserved for royal rank is linked to Venus and symbolic of love and fertility.

In this scene the stag has been chased and caught, alluding to a chase which culminates in the personal union of two lovers and the triumph of love

Other scenes are filled with vignettes of court life, each showing a courtly man kissing of the hand of a lady.

The flowers immediately flanking the armorial on the dish itself are the auricula and the pink carnation placed together with the speedwell.

Auriculas symbolise a union of primal or first love, presumably an allusion to the often prearranged marriages of the time. The pink carnation translates as woman’s love and the speedwell represents fidelity or truth.

Finally the single white bell of the campanula flower appears to the right of the auriculas, meaning gratitude and constancy.

The side of the chafing dish shows a view of courtiers walking in pairs in various parts of a formal garden, complete with a tunnel of love.

Historically such pleasure gardens found in many European countries at the time were a place of royal and aristocratic intrigue where courtiers expressed some of their most intimate desires.

The stand to the dish itself provides the most dramatic symbols of an obviously strong union between a husband and wife.

The central armorial is surrounded by further symbols of the heart’s desire: below it and to the right is an open purple cabbage rose, the ambassador of all love, beside a spray of speedwell representing the strongest symbol of true love.

To the left, the pink tinged dianthus not only denotes faithful love but also alludes to a belief in Christ as Saviour and is therefore a symbol of deep religious significance.

This alludes to the God given right to rule and the divine significance of the couple’s place in society.

Another scene supports the allusion. It shows a falconry hunt in progress, traditionally associated with royalty and regarded as the sport of kings.

There was a clear hierarchical use of birds of prey at this time that had its roots in the Middle Ages.

Rank decreed that a vulture or a merlin could be used in a hunt only by an emperor, while a king was entitled to a gyrfalcon, a peregrine falcon was used by a prince or a duke, a goshawk by a yeoman and a kestrel for a knave (to coin a phrase).
Finally, another panel shows a harbour and lighthouse, dominated on the right by a huge equestrian statue showing a rearing white horse.

Apparently, the king intended to install a statue of this design and was developed at Meissen by J.J.Kaendler. The idea never got beyond a terracotta model but by including the design in the chafing dish infers that the queen was complimenting the king on his grandiose scheme.

Mr Crane declined to reveal its price, but said it was in six figures. In May, Christie’s New York sold a Vincennes porcelain table fountain that had belonged to Louis XV’s mistress Madame de Pompadour. It fetched $1.8 million. That’s a little over £1 million.

The Meissen factory was established in 1710 near Dresden. Until then, only the Chinese were capable of making true porcelain but in 1707, an apprentice pharmacist called Johann Friedrich Bottger managed to make a fine red stoneware.
Bottger also claimed to be able to make gold from base metal and the then Elector of Saxony, Augustus the Strong, had Bottger imprisoned, to be released only when he had proved his claim.
Bottger worked for years but naturally failed. However, he accidentally hit on the process of making porcelain, which was at least as good – particularly to Augustus, who was an avid collector of Chinese porcelain.
Meissen’s most famous designers were Johann Gregor Horoldt (1720-55), who produced the renowned blue onion pattern, and Johann Joachim Kandler (1706-75) who created figurines, giant animals, and elegant table services.
Still in production today, collectors should look for the famous crossed swords trademark which was used on all products from 1723.

Pictures show, top: The highly important royal armorial presentation chafing dish and stand made at Meissen in 1745. The dish was commissioned personally by Queen Maria-Josepha to give to her husband Frederick-Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, King Augustus III of Poland to mark their 25th wedding anniversary

Below: The cover or lid of the dish. It has a gold coloured artichoke finial and the royal arms are flanked by heartsease, a sprig of iron red flowering sweet pea and speedwell and three pained panels of landscapes

Bottom, three of the painted views, left to right The pleasure gardens of a huge royal palace with courtiers walking in pairs and a with a tunnel of love in the background. A stag hunt pictured at the moment of capitulation as a white deerhound pulls down a running stag (he yellow coat of the huntsman indicates that it is a royal hunt). A view of a harbour with a huge equestrian statue of a rearing white horse that dominates the right side of the scene. The statue was never built